(xaris and shalom)

Nearly two years ago I posted about a speech that Steve Garber gave at Geneva called Making Peace with Proximate Justice.   (Long title, I know, but kind of catchy at the same time.) It was a good lecture. And like so many of Garber's words, it's been percolating in my mind since then.  (Sidenote:  this does not apply to the speech that he gave at my graduation, which I remember practically nothing  of.  Now that's what I call ironic!)  He asked a lot of good questions about culture and justice and our roles during that evening speech; here are two that struck me as core to think about. Can you know the world and still love the world? Does Christianity provide the answer to the complexity of these proble ms? I believe that Christianity is, in fact, the only way that an answer is provided to these complex problems.  I believe that you can know the world and love it -- when that love is grounded in knowing and loving God first. But I still find myself wrestling with the conc

I've been working the opening shift at Panera most weekdays.  It's a great shift... except it starts so early !  This week was much less hectic than the one before, and I am thankful. I've been listening to Jon Foreman's Limbs and Branches  (throwback to a year ago), Vienna Teng's new album Aims (which you can listen to by following this link ), and various other random stuff.  As always. I've been reading: a lot.  Here are various things I'd recommend... the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson in the fantasy category (although I was kind of disappointed by the ending), Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin in the sci-fi category, David and Goliath  by Malcolm Gladwell in the thinking about life category, and 24/6  by Matthew Sleeth in the you-should-definitely-read-this category. Actually yes... you should read 24/6 . The end. (Of this post, anyway.)

Three days. This time it's not me with the ticket for a flight to another continent; it's my younger sister.  I'm so excited for her and proud of her that I don't even have words to explain it. She is both one of my closest friends and one of my most unlikely.  As far as I can remember, our friendship officially began one evening in my parents' bedroom when we were sprawled out across the enormity of their bed, probably not being especially helpful with putting clean laundry away, or waiting for family devos to start, or something like that.  We were pretty young.  Young enough to want a best friend and to decide that, obviously, a sister was the best choice for the best friend since you had to live with them after all. We decided to be best friends. Which, pretty undoubtedly, is one of the best decisions of my life. When I think about it, sometimes I'm not sure that I could have picked a much more dis similar best friend. She's a dancer.  I didn't quite

Why am I doing this? I wondered as I listened to my boots hitting the sidewalk.  I was cold and moderately lost, it was dark outside, and I was in Cleveland.   Maybe I should just call and say that I'm not coming after all.   So then I would have wasted $74 on bus tickets, but on the other hand, then I could spend the night in my nice warm bed instead of catching a few hours of sleep on a bus. I backtracked and found the road that led to the Greyhound station. I don't like traveling . The sheer irony of that thought was almost enough to snap me out of my funk.  After all, I've traveled all over China.  I've taken buses, planes, trains, and some less-than-entirely-standard forms of transportation.  I've lived out of my backpack in Thailand.  I've had mostly good experiences and I get bored when I'm stuck in a place too long.  Yet being alone in an American city at night is enough to make me question myself. Aha, Greyhound... As I walked down the sidewalk tow